In the works for upwards of a decade, the Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum will cover 15,000 square feet and include 30 to 35 vehicles, roughly comparable to some of the other marque-specific museums on the Gilmore grounds. “We’re going to try to present the history of Lincoln all the way back to the Civil War, when Henry Leland was working in the Springfield Armory as a machinist,” said Jack Eby, the chair of the Lincoln Motor Car Foundation. “Then it’ll go all the way up to the postwar Lincolns and the modern era, the boats.”

In addition, as Hemmings Classic Car columnist and Lincoln aficionado David Schultz noted, the museum will include the original stone lintel from above the Detroit Lincoln plant, saved when the building was razed in 2002.

To date, the foundation has raised more than $1.5 million for the construction of the museum, but noted that it will continue to raise funds for the museum’s endowment. Eby said that the foundation already owns a number of the vehicles that will go in the museum, but expects that other museums and members of the various Lincoln clubs will also go on display in the museum.

The museum itself, which broke ground last month, will be patterned after an actual Lincoln dealership – specifically the P.J. Platte and later A.W. Reister Lincoln dealership at 3700 West East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. The neoclassical building, which no longer stands, was originally built in the early 1920s, either just before or right around the time when Leland sold Lincoln to Henry Ford.

“We’ll include plenty of history about the sale in the museum,” Eby said. “In fact, we’ll have both a 1922 Ford Model T and a 1922 Lincoln in the museum to compare the two cars and show how different they were.”

According to Eby, construction on the museum should wrap up before Michigan’s winter sets in, and it should open to the public at the end of the year, with a grand opening scheduled roughly for next summer. He also noted that along with the museum, the foundation – which represents the four major Lincoln clubs – has over the years created a 10,000-piece Lincoln archive in the AACA Library in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

In addition to the Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum, the Gilmore Car Museum includes the Classic Car Club of America Museum, the Pierce Arrow Museum, the Tucker Historical Collection and Library, the Franklin Collection, the Cadillac-LaSalle Club Museum, and the recently opened Model A Ford Museum as well as a collection of more than 300 cars in the main museum. For more information on the Gilmore, visit GilmoreCarMuseum.org.

10 Responses to “Gilmore to add Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum”

Not much to add, but living 3 hours away, I’ve been making it to Gilmore every year or two for 15 years. If you haven’t been there, you should make plans to go if at all possible. It’s a first class place, and they improve on it every year.

Talk about a great reason for a road trip! And dedicated to one of my favorite marques. I cant wait to see this jewel. I wonder if they will display newer post-WWII models as well? Would love to see the `49-56 models represented too.

My only concern is that the actual construction reflect the vintage Roaring ’20s architecture more than the artist rendering shown above. Otherwise, I fear the character of the Gilmore complex will be forever altered.

It’s now rather doubtful if I will ever make it to the Gilmore Car Museum, but, maybe…. Did everyone note the two beautiful Lincoln Zyphers parked in front of the dealership? Couldn’t miss them. What sleek, well designed cars!! ‘Way ahead of their time. The most gorgeous cars on the road. Also, can anyone deny that the coupe with whitewalls really stands out over the sedan with blackwalls? I think not…

The design of the Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum was approved by the Gilmore Car Museum. Already on the Gilmore campus are buildings similar to the Lincoln museum. The Franklin museum and Ford Model A museum are both inspired by vintage automobile dealerships. The soon-to-be-built Cadillac-LaSalle Museum will also reflect a historic auto dealership. The original Gilmore Car Museum buildings are historic in their own right. The Gilmore campus has truly become a destination for vintage car enthusiasts.